Improvements to the Alexa Ranking System

Web information company Alexa, an Amazon company, announced that a new
ranking system is available. Alexa has ranked websites since 1998 and that time
has managed to endear itself to millions of website owners and operators and
simultaneously raise the ire of the same number. Rankings were based on analysis
of Internet usage by people using the Alexa toolbar which any savvy online
marketer can tell you, could easily be manipulated in the past. Today, website
owners are seeing their rankings shift and the fun will continue for the next
couple weeks. While the announcement was pretty vague on what has actually
changed might again make Alexa a competitor in the face of competition from
solutions like Compete.com, Quantcast.com and other Web ranking services.

An improved methodology will normalize traffic from a global panel and
provide more accurate rankings for all countries, and while not dumping the
toolbar data outright, Alexa rankings will now be based on more sources of data
to give better indication of website popularity. Pretty big news in the website
ranking business.